


The Sun Also Sets

by Jinsai_ish



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27252106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinsai_ish/pseuds/Jinsai_ish
Summary: Implied sex. Underage drinking I suppose, depending on how you judge America's age. I suppose it could be an earlier companion to Afición but it doesn't have to be.Summary: I stole a bunch of quotes and tried to make a story.  But honestly -- America spends some time in Paris in the 1920s, trying to get away from himself.
Relationships: America/France (Hetalia)
Kudos: 14





	The Sun Also Sets

_“It was not what France gave you but what it did not take from you that was important.”_ -Gertrude Stein  
  
It’s a long trip from New York to Paris, but America is too weary of himself not to make it. At this point, he can’t even manage the energy for true disgust - merely a vague feeling of general distaste that has grown so encompassing that he must leave before it covers over everything he once loved and stains it all beyond recognition. He needs a vacation – a long one spent far away from himself, and Paris seems the place for it.  
  
Paris might be part of the reason for it, he thinks, and dreams of fire and choking screams, of the incessant rattling of gunfire and dying men. And if Paris is part of the reason, perhaps it will be part of the solution, if there is one. America is disaffected, disenchanted, though he wishes he weren’t. Back at home it’s too much, the clamour of it all, everyone shouting about progress while the hollow inside of him aches. It’s too much there, because he knows that’s where he should belong, where he should fit in, but he doesn’t. France isn’t home, and he doesn’t fit there either, but it’s easier somehow because he knows he isn’t expected to.  
  
Elsewhere, that expectation is too much. France expects nothing of him, and so he retreats to Paris. There is no boisterous welcome for him this time; the city has been liberated for some time. He passes by the statue of Lafayette in the square, and stops to rest on the grass there, remembering the rush of adrenaline and pride that had sustained him that day. He wants that feeling back, lingers on the ground as if some miracle of photosynthesis will cause it to sprout in him. Now and then, he feels the gaze of passers-by linger on him for a moment, then drop away. He suspects they have seen more than their share of tired young men in this city. It is nothing new, and that relieves him a little, even if it does not necessarily cheer him.  
  
There is no actual welcome waiting for him at France’s place, besides an unlocked door and an extra place set for him at the table, but that is enough. Here, he doesn’t have to worry about trying (and failing, always failing) to meet England’s demanding standards. Canada isn’t here, one minute growing a spine and announcing that he’s independent, and the next running to the British Empire’s beck and call. It even gives him a break from the strain that has developed between Russia and him since the eastern European nation had taken up that screwy system – the one America isn’t all too keen on. But here, there is no one he has to answer to.  
  
Not even himself.  
  
After dinner France makes drinks which they share out on the balcony. They watch the sun set over the Seine, dyeing the river red. It is beautiful, America thinks, although the symbolism is more than a little disturbing. He opens his mouth to comment on it since France usually enjoys that sort of talk, but something in France’s expression causes him to bite his tongue for once. “I’m getting cold,” he lies instead. “I’m going to get another drink. You want one?”  
  
France shakes his head by way of reply, and so America leaves the balcony alone. Glancing back, he sees the other nation backlit by the setting sun, his silhouette soft around the edges due to the lace curtains that flutter in the slight breeze. The sight of it causes him to hurry onward to the kitchen, and he is still there when France returns, leaning against the counter with his third (or perhaps fourth) drink nearly empty in his hand.  
  
Murmuring an objection when France tries to gently pry the glass out of his hand, America turns his head so that their eyes meet for a long moment. He opens his fingers then, relinquishing the glass and its last swallow.  
  
“What do you think?” he asks, his voice barely slurred. “Is it better to make a decision all at once, without any hesitation, even if you risk making the wrong one? Or should you wait - make sure you really know your onions, you know? Think about all the options and the consequences, until it’s too late to decide anything at all, let alone do something about it.”  
  
“Is there nothing in the middle?” France questions, fingers curling around the back of America’s neck. His thumb presses into the hollow there, massages little circles at the base of the blond’s skull.  
  
America laughs. “I’m not sure there is, not anymore,” he admits, and lets his head slip forward a little, because that feels so nice.  
  
He feels France clasp his wrist, feels the width of his hand and its warmth, the calluses there rough and reassuring. The tug is firm, not hard but insistent, and America doesn’t resist. He chuckles at himself, because he’d been somewhat worried about sleeping arrangements, and now realizes how silly that had been. With France, such things never were an issue.  
  
“ _Cher_ ,” France whispers when they reach the bedroom, kissing him on the cheek, on the chin, along his jaw line, at the corner of his mouth, “ _mon cher_ , why must you be so morose? You are doing such wonderful things. Such marvellous things.” He lays America back, and America rests against the bed, tilting his head up to continue watching. He likes to look at France, and he knows France enjoys being looked at, so there is no harm in it.  
  
“You cannot get away from yourself this way,” France continues, gently chiding as his nimble fingers undo the small buttons of their shirts. He sounds apologetic, and now America wants to close his eyes against that look on his face, to shut out the sound of his words. During the day, it was easy enough to be hard-boiled about this or that, but night-time was always another story. “Certainly, I won’t tell you not to come. I enjoy your company, I do. But I’ve tried all that myself. We all have. There’s nothing to it.”  
  
“I feel like hell,” America admits, reaching for the other nation. He pulls France close to him, rubs his jaw against his stubble, and breaths out. “Don’t you dare tell anyone that I said so. But I do. All the time anymore, or at least that’s what it feels like, and none of that stuff seems to make a difference in the end. Sure, I like it. The movies and the music, and the dancing and the cars are swell. But in the morning I wake up, and it’s the same, and then I get all balled up again.”  
  
“Ah, _mon petit lapin_ ,” France sighs, and runs his hand down America’s side. America shivers, arching into the touch. He listens to the coos in French; a soft, sweet babble that makes little sense to America but he lets it wash over him anyways.  
  
“Are you missing something?” France asks as they are resting afterward, and America has to think about that for a minute before he is able to answer.  
  
“Not missing exactly...” He doesn’t think he is. It doesn’t feel like missing. No, this is something similar, but different. There is nothing he wants to go _back_ to, not at this point, not even to that moment with Lafayette. But he would like those feelings again, would like the pleasure of feeling that way once more. “It’s not even that I’m looking for anything in particular. I don’t have anything in mind, other than when I find it, I’ll know it. Or at least I hope I will. Could you imagine, finding what you’ve been searching for all along, since before you can remember, and then walking right by it because you didn’t recognize it.” He feels his glasses ride up on his nose when he crinkles it to make a face. “But I should. Recognize it I mean.”  
  
“Because you’re the hero,” France teases and America thinks yes, because he’s the hero. Then he tries not to think that there are also heroes in tragedies, and those ones don’t get happy endings.  
  
But he is sure that his story won’t be one of those, or almost sure anyways. He can’t quite eliminate that nagging whisper of doubt completely, so he ignores it as best he can instead. France’s body is warm next to his in the bed, and America enjoys absently petting the hair on the older nation’s body. He wraps the golden chest curls about his smallest finger, combs his nails down through the thick covering on the arms, slides his leg up against the furry one next to it. It is distracting, and the distraction is comforting. He has a week to spend in this comfort, perhaps more if France doesn’t object, and none of the sounds coming from him now sound like objections.  
  
His story will be a happy one in the end he thinks. It is pretty to think so, and, after all, he does enjoy such things.  
  
  
**A/N:**  
  
**Little bit of 1920s slang:**  
“Know one’s onions” – know what you’re talking about, know your business  
“hard-boiled” – hard; tough  
“balled up” – confused, messed up  
“mon petit lapin” – French for ‘my little bunny’, bunny being a period endearment for someone who seemed lost and/or confused. Plus, it works well with that whole USA = usa(gi) = bunny thing.  
  
**Historical References:**  
re. “that day” – the American arrival in Paris in WWI, when the troops paid homage to Lafayette’s memory.  
Re. Canada – Canada was officially recognized as a dominion in 1867, but otherwise remained under the control of the British government in many ways.  
Re. Russia and his bizarre new system – Lenin, Stalin, and the spread of communism.  
  
**Inspiration:**  
Ernest Hemingway, _The Sun Also Rises_  
“Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.”  
“It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but night is another thing.”  
“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”  
  
F. Scott Fitzgerald, _This Side of Paradise_  
“I don’t want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.”  
“This has nothing to do with will-power; that’s a crazy, useless word anyway; you lack judgement – the judgement to decide at once when you know your imagination will play you false, given half a chance.”  
“Progress was a labyrinth… people plunging blindly in and then rushing wildly back, shouting that they had found it.”


End file.
